Chapter 4 - The Hunt for Truth
With Flynn ousted from Vance Global and facing a federal trial, I stepped in as temporary Executive Chairwoman. The business world was stunned by the speed of my ascension, but within two weeks, stock prices stabilized. I restructured the board, fired Flynn’s corrupt inner circle, and redirected thirty percent of the company's annual philanthropic budget toward maternal health and trauma recovery centers across Illinois.
Yet, despite my professional victory, an unsettling feeling lingered in my chest.
Selina Cole had vanished.
Following her ejection from Flynn's penthouse, she had cleared out her bank accounts and disappeared from Chicago. The police were searching for her as a co-conspirator in my assault, but she had erased her digital footprint completely.
One evening in late September, three months after my discharge from the hospital, I was working late in my new office on the 50th floor. Rain beat a steady rhythm against the glass.
My door opened, and Julian walked in, carrying a manila folder with an official seal from the Illinois State Police Forensic Unit.
"Mabel," Julian said, his expression unusually grim. "We found something in Selina’s background check. Something we missed."
I set my pen down. "What is it?"
"Selina didn't just show up in Chicago six months ago by coincidence," Julian explained, opening the file on my desk. "Four years ago, before you and Flynn were married, Selina was admitted to a psychiatric facility in Boston under an assumed name. She was diagnosed with severe narcissistic personality disorder and erotomania—a delusional belief that a specific person, in this case Flynn, is deeply in love with them."
I felt a cold shiver run down my spine. "Erotomania?"
"Look at the medical records from three years ago," Julian pointed to a stamped document. "Six months before your wedding, Flynn’s mother visited Selina in Boston and paid her two hundred thousand dollars to stay away from Flynn forever. Flynn never knew about it. He thought Selina abandoned him for a wealthy European businessman."
"So Flynn’s entire 'first love' complex was built on a lie manufactured by his own mother," I realized, rubbing my temples. "He spent five years pining for a woman who was paid off to leave."
"It gets worse," Julian said softly. "Selina didn't come back for Flynn's love, Mabel. She came back because she ran out of money. And when she discovered you were pregnant three months ago..."
"How did she know I was pregnant?" I asked, snapping my head up. "I hadn't even told Flynn!"
Julian pulled out a printout of text messages retrieved from a intercepted phone drive.
"She bugged your car, Mabel," Julian revealed, his voice shaking with anger. "The week before the attack, she had a mechanic install a tracking device and a microphone under the dashboard of your Range Rover. She overheard you talking to your OB-GYN on the phone when you confirmed the twin pregnancy."
I sank back into my chair, my hands going completely numb.
Selina hadn't just walked up to our house to stage a fight. She had known I was pregnant. She had staged the scratch on the exact afternoon she knew Flynn was emotionally unstable, calculated his temper, and manipulated him into striking me where it would do the most catastrophic damage.
It wasn't just domestic abuse. It was a pre-meditated, calculated attempt to terminate my pregnancy and destroy my marriage in one single blow.
"Where is she, Julian?" I asked, my voice dropping into a register of cold, absolute steel.
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"Our private investigators tracked her to a small cabin near Lake Geneva, Wisconsin," Julian said. "She’s prepping to cross the border into Canada tonight under a fake passport."
I stood up, pulling my coat from the rack. "Call the Wisconsin State Police and Detective Miller. We're going to Lake Geneva."
